The Other Half of History is in Al Fuller’s New Book

It’s been over three years since I posted any new content on this website, because I’ve been researching and writing a book on American history which is now available for sale on Amazon.

During this hiatus I’ve been gratified to see that the number of people visiting the website has continued to grow month by month despite the absence of any new posts. I’d like to think that the reason for this ever-increasing audience size is that the content of the site is of interest to readers, who are kind enough to recommend the site to their friends, or post links to it in various places. At any rate the comments and emails I get from visitors to the site have been a great encouragement to me as I toiled away on A Self-Made Nation: The People and Principles that Built America.

Writing this book was a labor of love for me. From its founding the United States has been a nation where the future is unlimited for a young person who believes in the power of his own efforts, and I wrote the book to illustrate how, from the earliest days of the Republic, Americans with no money, status, connections, or privilege have been able to overcome the obstacles in their way and create success for themselves.

The history of the nation itself is a rags-to-riches success story. In the 1780s, when the United States was founded, it was a small, poor country with no non-human resources to speak of. The U.S. of that time had no factories, no technology, and very little hard money; and was regularly insulted and oppressed by both England and France. Yet that same country was the richest and most powerful nation on Earth by the end of the next century. No other nation or empire in history has ever thrust itself onto the world scene with that kind of speed; not the Romans, not the Greeks, no one. And the engine that drove this unprecedented growth was ordinary Americans, most of whom started out in life with nothing but determination, self-reliance, and freedom.

Anyone who is kind enough to buy and read A Self-Made Nation will learn how real the American Dream can be, from dozens of true stories of self-made men who grew up in poverty and then overcame all the obstacles in their way to achieve their ambitions and build a great nation. Readers will find the book enlightening and informative and, I dare to hope, inspiring as well. It is my fervent desire that these stories, and the larger American story they collectively represent, will be as great an inspiration to the people who read the book as they have been to the fellow who wrote it.